


Specious Reasoning

by last_illusions (injured_eternity)



Category: West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-02
Updated: 2007-08-02
Packaged: 2017-10-17 09:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/175366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injured_eternity/pseuds/last_illusions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She watches him sleep, and she tries not to think about the inevitable, even though it’s what keeps her awake. [Post-5x09]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Specious Reasoning

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: 5x09 [“Abu el Banat”]; 5x08 ["Shutdown"]; 5x01 ["7A WF 83429"]; 4x23 ["Twenty-Five"]; and the seasons in general.

_I’ll be there when the world stops turning;  
I'll be there when the storm is through;  
In the end I want to be standing at the beginning with you._  
\--Richard Marx & Donna Lewis, “At the Beginning”

  
I’m sorry. You may not believe me; you may not even know _why_ I’m sorry, but I am.

It wasn’t supposed to sound like that, like it did; it wasn’t supposed to sound like I had to think about the answer, because I didn’t. And stop trying to touch my forehead; stop asking if I’m feeling all right. I don’t care if you’re asleep—you’d be doing that if you weren’t. Yes, jackass, you would be; don’t lie. I just know you that well.

Which is why it hurt so much that you felt you had to ask if I’d be there when things started going downhill. It hurt more when I realized you thought I had to think about it, that my “yeah” was a lie. Did you for a minute believe that I’d say no? That I’d leave you to suffer through this damned disease on your own?

You certainly didn’t deserve this diagnosis and all the hell that came with it, and there are people I’d love to kill when I even think about what this all could reduce you to, but leave? After all these years—after three kids and two grandkids—do you really think I would? And I swear that if you say yes, I’ll kill you right now, and there goes your chance to prove to people that multiple sclerosis isn’t fatal.

But I’ve been out of this place since I took Zoey home. Maybe that’s what made you ask—made you wonder. Don’t tell me you didn’t, because I heard it in your voice, the tone that comes with the questions you never want to voice but can’t help asking, even though you’re afraid of the answer. All you said was my name, I know. It doesn’t matter; I heard it anyway. This year has been hell, for all of us. You had to stay here, being the leader of the damn free world, and I wanted to be a mother, but I’m a politician’s wife. So I let you be the target. Every mother on the planet worth her salt who has ever been lucky enough to have her child returned to her has been able to rely on maternal instinct. Mine was just as sharp as anyone else’s, but I couldn’t just be the mother—I had to be the politician’s wife, too. Somewhere in there, I probably blamed you. But blame doesn’t override the love. And then you had to go and shut down the whole government. Could you have been any less drastic?

I know we paid the price for withholding your diagnosis. Maybe if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t have had to push Zoey out to the public so quickly, before the bruises even healed. Maybe if we hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been the silent questions of how much damage we were hiding. But it’s too late for that; I know we had no choice, so don’t tell me that.

And our conversation is still running through my head. Here I am mentally enduring a time lapse, and then it drops me like yesterday’s news to pick up six words and run them like a broken reel.

 _You gonna be there?… Yeah… Abbey?_

That’s all I keep hearing, you know. That wouldn’t even pass for a decent commercial, and it’s been playing all night, since I walked out of the dining room. I couldn’t answer you—I was too stunned by the question, too thrown by the idea of this future coming up again. It isn’t that I didn’t want to answer, that I didn’t _know_ the answer. I just keep wishing they wouldn’t bring up assisted suicide to you, because you always to come back to that syringe-in-the-nightstand scenario, and you keep telling me no, as if I’d be able to be the one to do it. But that’s not the point, and I know it as well as you do. Maybe I just don’t know how a man staring down your road can hold the stance you do, but—

I’m talking myself in circles. I’m not even _talking_ and I’m talking myself in circles. At—what time is it? Three in the morning. And you’ll be up in two hours, probably to talk to someone on the other side of the world so he can get his beauty sleep in time while you lose yours.

“Abbey?”

You’re up. Damn it.

“Yeah?”

“Why’re you up?”

You sound entirely too lucid for someone who’s just woken up. Stop that.

“Couldn’t fall asleep.”

I hope Liz realized you took Gus back out.

“Oh.”

You’re really not that awake, are you?

“Go back to sleep.”

You’re following my orders for once. I’m stunned, I hope you know. It’s about time. Your hand comes up to touch my face, and I’m not sure why, but, what the hell; your shoulder’s more comfortable than the pillow, anyway.

I signed on for the long haul, you idiot, and it’s got nothing to do with being Catholic. For all I know—for all you know, no matter how brilliant you are, or think you are—the end is tomorrow, and the beginning feels like yesterday. I don’t think either of us are going anywhere.

  
 _Finis_.

 _Feedback is always appreciated_.


End file.
